India loses its consumer confidence leadership title to Indonesia

India’s quarterly consumer confidence declined 4 points in the index to 119. Indonesia topped it marginally with its score of 120, Nielsen’s latest global consumer confidence survey showed.

The global consumer confidence declined three index points to 91 in Q2 2012, and is up only by two index points from the same period last year, the study revealed.

Among the regions, consumer confidence declined in Asia Pacific (by three points), and in North America (by four points) but increased by one point each in Middle East/Africa and Europe.

The biggest quarterly consumer confidence declines in Q2 were reported in Taiwan (-12), Argentina (-5), Australia (-5), China (-5), Netherlands (-5), United States (-5), Brazil (-4), India (-4), Italy (-4), Norway (-4), and Saudi Arabia (-4).

A majority of countries that reported the biggest quarterly consumer confidence gains in Q2 were from Europe and included France (+11), Belgium (+9), Finland (+7), Switzerland (+7), Austria (+6), Egypt (+6), Greece (+6), Poland (+5), and Sweden (+4). From Asia, Malaysia reported a rise of 4 points.

Decline in perceptions of job prospects, personal income
The research also found that less than half (47%) of the respondents thought their job prospects were “good” or “excellent”. This was down one percentage point from the previous quarter and up three percentage points from last year. Only about half (53%) of respondents said their personal finances over the next twelve months looked  “good” or “excellent”, down two percentage points from Q1 2012 and up four percentage points from Q2 2011.

The economy, job security and cutting expenditure remained the top concerns for global consumers surveyed by Nielsen.